


Poe Dameron's Hair Smells Like Honeysuckle and Gasoline

by moemachina



Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: BB-8 Loves Poe, BB-8 Loves Saxophones, Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-04-16
Updated: 2016-04-16
Packaged: 2018-06-02 13:10:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,008
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6567679
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/moemachina/pseuds/moemachina
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>BB-8 explained how Poe Dameron's hair was silky smooth, full-bodied, and completely free of split ends. When he swept back his glorious mane (casually, running his fingers through its unruly mass, making eye contact with you all the while), strong men went weak in the knees, and strong women sighed, and in the background, a lone saxophone sounded.</p><p>Rey frowned. "What's a saxophone?"</p><p>BB-8 paused and then, tentatively, emitted a low keening honk.</p><p>(Or: Rey and Poe Meet Cute over the comatose form of their mutual boyfriend.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Poe Dameron's Hair Smells Like Honeysuckle and Gasoline

**Author's Note:**

> This is based on the theatrical release of TFA; it gleefully ignores the official novelization and any other future canonical accounts of How Rey and Poe Met. Also, I've swiped my McGuffin from "Undercover Boss: Starkiller Base."

BB-8 said that Poe Dameron's hair smelled like honeysuckle and twilight. 

"I doubt that," Rey said. "And, also, how would you be able to tell? You don't even have a nose." Stretched out on her belly, she had her cheek pressed against the cold floor and her arms buried past her elbows in the innards of the _Millennium Falcon_. 

She could not see the knot of wires and cables that she was untangling, but her blind fingers knew what to do: which kink to straighten, which loop to pull, which gap to enter. 

Beside her, BB-8 protested her skepticism. He may have lacked olfactory inputs, but he did have an antenna and access to several hundred simultaneous channels of short-range comm channels -- and, through them, apparently countless hours of shampoo advertisements. Thus BB-8 was well-equipped to explain how Poe Dameron's hair was silky smooth, full-bodied, and completely free of split ends. When he swept back his glorious mane (casually, running his fingers through its unruly mass, making eye contact with you all the while), strong men went weak in the knees, and strong women sighed, and in the background, a lone saxophone sounded. 

Rey frowned. "What's a saxophone?" 

BB-8 paused and then, tentatively, emitted a low, keening honk.

"Well, if his hair makes that sound every time he touches it, it must get annoying after a while," Rey said absently as she felt her way along a fraying line. 

BB-8 squeaked indignantly. It was the most seductive noise, he said. It played every time a lowly housemaid realized that she was the beloved of the scion of the manor, or a fleeing slave caught sight of the spaceship of his pirate-lover, or the sickly princess discovered the love letter left behind by her banished mathematics tutor. 

In addition to shampoo commercials, BB-8 also followed an endless catalogue of comm-dramas, Rey was discovering. She suspected that, given half an opportunity, the little droid would have happily rattled off hundreds of plot synopses.

Unfortunately for BB-8, Rey had little interest in comm-dramas. She was vaguely familiar with them from afternoons spent cleaning old tech in Unkar Plutt's tents, because some of the other scavengers had listened to their old comms as they brushed and scrubbed. From the tinny and static-filled snatches she had heard, the comm-dramas had always seem frivolous and formulaic, full of an indistinguishable array of virtuous paupers and evil stepmothers. 

"Ah," she breathed. From the depths of the open wall-panel, she pulled out a long silver wire trailing a triangular plug-end. "Here's the head. Could you check this and see if it's linking up?" 

BB-8 obligingly slid back a panel and accepted the plug-end into his port. After a moment, he beeped forebodingly. 

"Ugh," she said. "That's still not good enough." She tucked a strand of hair back behind her ear. "I don't want the calcinator to explode in the middle of hyperspace." 

BB-8 said that, one time, Poe Dameron had lost his calcinator in the middle of a dog-fight and then he had won the battle and then he had made it back through hyperspace right before all his systems failed. But, then, that was just another day in the life of Poe Dameron and his saxophone-playing hair. 

Rey had not met this Poe Dameron but based on what BB-8 said, he had no equal when it came to piloting ships, playing chess, doing push-ups, folding origami figures, composing poetry, pouring tea, or vanquishing the First Order -- and, to top it all off, he smelled like heaven. 

"I'm not sure I want to meet him," Rey said. "Who would be able to handle an encounter with such a god?" 

BB-8 burbled suspiciously at her, but he was interrupted by the unmistakable sounds of the ship's doors opening to admit a slightly aggravated Wookie. 

"Here!" Rey called as she hurriedly shoved back the tendrils of wiring and pushed herself to her feet. "Just checking the calcinator again."

Chewbacca lumbered into the galley with a plastic crate balanced against his hip. He glanced quizzically at BB-8. 

"He's helping me with the calcinator," Rey said with a grimace. "It's pretty battered. I think you'll need a new one." 

Chewbacca shrugged as he dropped the crate on the galley table with a thump. It had never been a great calcinator, he informed her. But it would do. And even if it wouldn't, they didn't have time to find a new one. And then, before Rey could energetically protest, he asked her when she had last eaten. 

Rey blinked. "Um," she said at last. "I...I don't remember. I guess...that protein bar? That you gave me on the way here..." And then, unspoken, the rest of the sentence: _Last night. With Finn silent in the ship's bunk, and me sitting in the co-pilot seat, and both of us trying not to think about the man who wasn't with us._

As if on cue, her stomach rumbled. 

"I'm not hungry!" she blurted out. "I don't really get hungry, you know, I can go for days at a time, I do it all the time..." She trailed off under the weight of his steady, unblinking stare, but she did not lower her chin. "I'm not hungry," she said again. 

Chewbacca told her to go to the mess hall. 

"But if we're leaving tomorrow, and that calcinator needs to be tweaked, I don't think--" 

Chewbacca repeated himself. His tone was not reproving or stern or intimidating; it was simply flat and certain. Rey had not known the Wookie for very long, but she had known him long enough to recognize when he was going to be unbending.

"Fine," she said, ungraciously. "But we definitely need a new calcinator." 

Chewbacca shrugged and suggested that maybe the mess hall was serving calcinators tonight. 

Beside her, BB-8 exclaimed excitedly and began nudging her leg.

"No, no," she said wearily. "He's not being serious, BB-8."

Chewbacca threw back his head and roared. It took Rey a startled moment to realize that he was laughing. 

She scowled. "You won't think this is so funny when the calcinator explodes tomorrow." 

That was where she was wrong, said Chewbacca, who was now laughing so hard that he was beginning to wipe away tears from the corners of his eyes. That exploding calcinator tomorrow was going to be hilarious, he promised. 

Confused, BB-8 rocked beside her ankle and emitted a few half-hearted, semi-jovial beeps. 

Rey, watching the Wookie, felt a growing sense of panic. Chewbacca was still making noises, but now his hands were fully pressed against his face, and the sound he was making was low and awful. She no longer thought he was laughing. She no longer knew how to respond. 

"I'll go to the mess hall," she blurted out.

And then she fled.

*****

For a moment, Rey paused on the gangplank and scowled.

She had spent most of the previous day working in the serenity and silence of the ship. She had been hiding, she was not sorry to say. It had been nice. 

She squared her shoulders and started forward. BB-8 merrily rolled beside her. 

"You don't have to stay with me," Rey told the little droid. "I mean, I'm glad you've been with me. But if you need to go and do something..." 

BB-8 ignored this. 

She did not know the base very well. The last day had been a strange blur, and she had tried to spend as much time as possible aboard the safely familiar _Millennium Falcon_. But she had a vague sense of the base's layout, and she knew that to reach the base's mess hall, one turned left after the blast doors. 

When she passed through the blast doors, Rey turned right. 

She wandered down a series of dark and flickering hallways. Gnarled roots climbed along the walls and crossed the ceiling; Rey found herself frequently ducking to avoid a low-hanging fibrous mass. Occasionally someone in uniform passed her with a glance, but no one stopped her or asked who she was. Maybe they already knew. Rey flushed at the thought that her name and face might have been circulated among strangers. 

Or maybe they didn't care? After all, the Resistance had just won an unprecedented victory over their enemies. In the distance, Rey thought she could hear the sound of people singing. 

She swallowed convulsively, She did not feel like singing. 

The infirmary was a series of beds and bacta-tubes separated by flimsy plastic curtains. There was a nurse on duty at the front desk, and he tiredly nodded at Rey as she came into the room. 

"There's been no change," he told her. 

Rey shrugged. She had not come with any expectation of change. 

Yet, when she reached the back of the room and pulled back the curtain, she was still surprised. 

Finn lay there, just as he had been last night, silent and solemn and so unrecognizable in his sleeping repose that Rey wanted to sob. 

But he was not alone. There was a man curled up in a chair beside Finn's bed. With his back against one arm-rest and his knees tucked against the inside of the other, the man looked as if he was practicing the universe's least comfortable way to occupy a chair, but his head was cradled against his shoulder, and he gave every appearance of being sound asleep. 

At least until BB-8 made an explosive squeal of joy and rushed forward. And then the man woke up with a convulsive start. His knees slid right, his elbows jerked left, and for a moment, it looked as if he might topple out of the chair completely. 

He grabbed the back of the chair, and his bleary eyes focused on the little droid bumping ecstatically against his chair leg. "Hey there, sweet-pea," he said huskily to BB-8. "Long time no see." He pulled himself upright with a wince and rubbed at his eyes. Then, noticing Rey for the first time, he blinked at her as he ran his hand through his tousled hair.

And even in her surprise and dismay at finding another person here, even in the midst of her irritation that her visit was going to be compromised by a spectator's presence -- even then, Rey had to admit that he had fabulous hair. His hair looked as if, in a high breeze, it might make the same sound as silver wind chimes. 

"You must be Poe Dameron," she said. 

The man raised one eyebrow. "That's me," he said slowly. BB-8 batted against his chair, and he dropped one hand to rest his palm against the top of the droid. BB-8 was excitedly gurgling at him, and the man looked back up to her. "And you must be Rey. I've heard a lot about you." 

Rey frowned at him. "Have you? Why?" She thought, with cool irritation, of rumors circulating through the base. 

The corner of Poe's mouth lifted. "From him, of course." He nodded toward Finn. "He needed our help to get to you." 

"Oh," Rey said. "Right." She took a deep breath. "Well. I didn't mean to bother you. I guess I'll just... I mean, I'll come back later." 

"Hey, hold up," he said, sliding his feet onto the floor and finally achieving a conventional sitting position. "There's room enough for both of us in this town, partner." 

Rey stared at him, and the smile on his face faded. "I meant," he said, "that you can pull up a chair and join me. It's okay. I mean, I don't think we'll bother him." His mouth flattened into something that was not-quite-a-smile. 

"Okay," Rey said. There was a plastic chair on the other side of Finn's bed, so that when she sat, she and Poe were regarding one another across the slowly rising chest of the unconscious man. 

BB-8, she realized, was in the middle of a thorough and exhaustive report of what he had been doing for the past day -- which was assisting Rey as she prowled the _Falcon_ and prepared it for departure. 

Poe glanced up at her. "Leaving so soon?"

Rey stiffened. "Yes. The General thought that there should be no delay, now that we've discovered the location of Skywalker."

"And they're sending you." The question was implicit in his tone. 

Rey grimaced. "Well, it makes sense. I...I have some questions for him. And something to give him. And...after all, there's no reason for me to stay." 

This last part felt hollow and untrue even as she said it. After all, her reason for staying was lying there, still and palpable, between the two of them. 

Poe's face was expressionless, but his dark eyes shifted away from her. "Well. Okay. I mean, to me, it seems like a big thing to ask of you, but I'm not the folks upstairs. I don't get to make those calls." 

Rey watched Finn's chest rise and fall. "It's not too big for me. I can do it." 

"I don't doubt it, man," Poe said easily. "I'm sure you'll do it expertly. But that doesn't make it any less of a big ask." 

Rey shrugged uncomfortably. "I doubt the Resistance has any people to spare. This place looks like it's being run on a skeleton crew." 

Poe made no response. 

"I mean," she added hastily, "no offense. I'm sure it's quite enough people to handle everything you need handled. Running the base and undermining the First Order and all that." 

For a long moment, Poe's face was utterly without expression, but just as Rey was beginning to feel disconcerted at his silence, a slow and wide smile stretched across his mouth. "Nah," he said. "We don't have a lotta manpower, that's true. I'm sure they're glad that you've volunteered; we're stretched thin as it is." He cocked his head to one side; there was still the distant sound of off-key singing in the distance. "And, after all, I doubt any of our pilots will be in fit condition to fly any time soon." 

"What are they doing?" Rey asked. 

"Celebrating," Poe said. "Everyone is so relieved to be alive, and frankly, we're not super used to winning." He gave a bitter little laugh. "I doubt that most of those dudes celebrating out there know what you guys did to enable that victory." 

For a moment, Rey remembered what they had done to enable that victory -- long black hair, a falling man, the cold snow -- and she gave an involuntary shudder. "No one needs to know what we did," she said. And, silently: _And nobody needs to know who I am._

Poe coughed. "I mean, hell, I don't think that I even know the whole story of what you guys did," he said. "I just know that, hey, here you guys are." 

Both of them stared at the man lying between them. 

"Here we are," Rey repeated sadly. She looked up at the pilot and said, haltingly, "Did...did you know him well?" 

Poe's eyes widened. "Me? I don't think anyone would say we knew each other well. We escaped a ship together, and he found me on the base here after Takodana, but we didn't have a heck of a lot of time for chit-chat, you know?" He glanced down at the man, and his expression softened. "But even so, I think I knew him well enough." Without looking at Rey, he asked, "And what about you?" 

Rey swallowed. "Same."

"Yeah," Poe said. "I think we both knew Finn just fine." And there was something about the way that he said Finn's name that made the breath catch in Rey's throat. She felt a momentary dizziness, as if the room was rearranging itself around her. 

BB-8 chose that moment to inform Poe that Rey had not eaten in the last twenty-four hours. 

"Dammit, BB-8," Rey said. 

"Well, that won't stand," Poe said. He stood up. "C'mon, let's get you something to eat." 

"I'm not hungry," Rey muttered, hunching in her chair. 

"Of course you aren't," Poe said. "But it's gonna make that Wookie of yours so much happier if you eat something. I know, man. Wookies are firm believers in regular meals." He stretched his arms tiredly over his head. "Besides, when Finn wakes up, I need to be able to tell him that we took real good care of you. And I think he'll be able to tell if we're lying." 

It was on the tip of Rey's tongue to refuse, but instead she found herself rising to her feet. "Okay," she said.

"Excellent," Poe said breezily. "Come on, this way." 

"Hey," she said as they left the infirmary. "Do you know what a calcinator is?" 

Poe snorted. "Do I know what a calcinator is? Do _I_ know what a calcinator is?" 

"Yes," Rey said. "That's what I'm asking." 

"Of course I know what a calcinator is. They don't have me flying that X-wing because of my good looks, man." 

BB-8 burbled alongside them. 

"Well, fine, sweet-pea," Poe said. "But maybe they have me flying that X-wing because of my good looks _and_ my calcinator expertise." 

"Do you know where on this base I could find one?" Rey asked. 

Poe glanced sidelong at her. "Maybe," he said slowly. "How badly do you need it?" 

"Very badly, in my opinion," Rey said. "Although my pilot disagrees." 

"Then I will help you find one," Poe said. "Though it will probably entail hardship and difficulty and me having to make puppy-dog eyes at multiple drunk engineers tonight." He gave a delicate shudder. 

BB-8 beeped. 

"Yes, sweet-pea," Poe said absently, "it _is_ just like that time Anastasia had to infiltrate that enemy base by flirting with the receptionist, who turned out to be her twin sister with amnesia." 

The hallway was narrow and crowded with gnarled roots, and in such close proximity, Rey could not help but be aware of Poe's hair. 

It smelled a little like motor oil and a little like hot metal, but mostly it smelled human, in ways both familiar and strange.


End file.
